The CBI on Friday gave a clean chit to Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav in a six-year-old disproportionate assets case,contradicting its own investigation conducted in 2007.

Filing a closure report in the preliminary enquiry registered against Mulayam and his family,the investigating agency,After exploring each possible avenue,CBI has closed the PE against Mulayam and his family members,on account of grossly insufficient evidence.

Later,CBI Director Ranjit Sinha told The Indian Express,We are ready for any legal scrutiny in the matter.

The agency carried out the reassessment of the case after an order from the Supreme Court in 2012 in which the CBI was directed to exclude the assets,income and expenditure of Mulayams daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav. Careful examination of documents,statement of witnesses and the versions of the suspects during the course of further enquiry,has not brought out sufficient evidence supporting the allegations, the agency stated.

Closing the case,the agency said in its defence,A large number of advances which were shown as assets as well as expenditure in 2007,leading to double accounting by CBI,now stand corrected. Similarly,a number of heavy advances,despite being refunded subsequently,were taken as assets in 2007. These refunds stand corroborated from the bank accounts statements. Earlier,these advances were shown as assets on the basis of their reflection in a particular income tax return.

It said a further inquiry in 2013 also undertook an amount of Rs 8.42 lakh as expenditure on account of the education of Akhilesh Yadav abroad,which was not there in the 2007 probe.

In its closure report,the agency said that each and every item brought out in the earlier findings of CBI has been thoroughly re-examined and reassessed. Care has also been taken to probe every single item finding mention in the writ petition of Vishwanath Chaturvedi.

The CBI also gave a clean chit to Mulayam in connection with the construction of a house at Saifai,for which it was earlier recommended to conduct valuation. According to teh CBI,it was found that out of the total cost of Rs 1.41 crore,the contribution by Mualyam,wife Malti Devi and Akhilesh was less than 10 per cent. The CBI probe claimed that the house was constructed by Mulayams father Sughar Singh Yadav,between 1994 and 2004.

A CBI note also said,The alleged stakes of Shri Mulayam Singh and his family members in Ch Charan Singh Post Graduate College at Hewara and in the UP Rural Institute of Medical Science and Research at Saifai have not been substantiated.

It also said that the 2007 inquiry carried out by CBI had some other discrepancies,some of which went against Mulayam and his family members.

THE CASE

The preliminary enquiry was registered by CBI on the directions of Supreme Court in 2007. Hearing the petition filed by Vishwanath Chaturvedi in 2005,the court had asked the CBI to probe into the assets and income of the SP chief and his family members. The CBI claim that since Mulayam and his family members did not join the enquiry at the initial stage,it was concluded in 2007 in which the DA came to around Rs 2.63 crore. This was without taking into account the defence of Mulayam and his family members,the agency claims.

THE PETITIONER

Questioning the closure report,Vishwanath Chaturvedi told The Indian Express,The CBI has been protecting Mulayam and his family from time to time on the instance of the government. It is now up to the SC to decide the matter. The agency has not done its investigation properly. My petition to include Dimple in the enquiry is also pending before the SC. How can they exclude Dimple if all the properties acquired by her are held jointly?